How to make your customers love you forever...

As I was putting my shirt on this morning an unexpected and quite involuntary smile appeared on my face.  No, I wasn’t joyously happy because the Christmas season is upon us; nor was I over the moon because I was running ahead of schedule…because I wasn’t…I was running late, again. 

So why was I smiling unexpectedly?  Because of the Hilton Embassy Suites, Old Market, Omaha.  Yes, Omaha…right in the middle of the United States of America.  Why would anyone, let alone me, be smiling about Omaha…especially as I was there in 2009….a long time ago now.

I should probably also tell you what thought went through my head as the smile appeared;

“That was so awesome.”

So, for the budding detectives out there, I had an involuntary smile appear on my face as I put on my shirt, with the thought “that was so awesome”.  What the hell was going on?

Well, 6 years ago something very unusual happened to me at the Hilton Embassy Suites in Omaha…my expectations were greatly surpassed…and I am still positively, and involuntarily, affected by it now. 

That is powerful.  If you are the Hilton Embassy Suites, Old Market, Omaha, you should be smiling.  If you are another company, then you should want your customers to be involuntarily smiling 6 years after interacting with you.  It is possible.

The year was 2009….

…and as a new, and very excited, Gallup employee I had to travel to Omaha regularly in my first few months so the powers that be could put us through what they called ‘Boot Camp’…it was of course hell on earth…but, as an aside, it was the best onboarding program I have ever experienced. 

We stayed at, you guessed it, the Hilton Embassy Suites, Old Market, Omaha.  I could tell you that the rooms were basic but clean and nice, the décor was truly interesting and the shower struggled to provide me with as much hot water as I usually like.  But none of that matters; because I used their laundry service.  So I put my business shirts in and went off to be whipped to pieces by some really nice Americans.

When I came back my shirts were laundered as I had expected them to be.  They smelt fresh, clean, pressed, no wrinkles…all the usual stuff I had experienced in Australia and London many, many times before.

At this stage I should probably tell you that I don’t know how to use a needle and thread.  Never have, probably never will, and I’m ok with that.  But back then I had a couple of shirts that didn’t have a top button, and that was ok, because I always wear a tie and I used the tightness of the tie to hold the collar together and the tie knot hid the lack of button….no one caught on even though they had been like that for a long time!   I knew at some stage I would have to get them fixed up, but it was always on tomorrow’s to-do list.

So, back to the Embassy Suites and my freshly laundered shirts.

As I hung my shirts up, imagine my happiness, surprise, and genuine shock when I saw that not only had my shirts been perfectly laundered, as I expected, but they had actually fixed the missing top collar buttons!!  They had even fixed a note to the buttons that said; “we see you have a button missing, so we went ahead and fixed that for you.”  What?!?!?!

Truly I was blown away…and even thinking about it now I can’t help but say “that was so awesome”.  But the question remains; why?  Why am I so positively affected by it?  Why am I bothering to write about it and why, when I was a Consultant at Gallup and then Head of Customer Engagement at TAL, did I talk about this story so much?  It’s all due to the three core lessons it taught me and I want to share them with you.

So, what can we learn from this….

1, Exceed your customers’ expectations

If you want word of mouth referrals, you have to give your customers something to talk about.

Find ways to go above and beyond for your customers.  Do something they don’t expect you to do.  The positive experience will stay with them and they will tell others about it.  It’s that simple. 

In this instance, I paid them for laundry and based on all my experiences up until that point, laundry didn’t include fixing buttons.  I had laundered those shirts so many times before and not one of the laundrettes in Australia had ever fixed those buttons.  But at the Hilton Embassy Suites, I got laundered shirts AND fixed buttons.  They went above and beyond what I was expecting.

But remember, to really nail this you need to know what your customers’ expectations are.  Maybe the fixing of buttons from a laundry service is standard for Americans.  It wasn’t for me, so it blew me away.

So, spend the time to understand your customers.  Notwithstanding advances in data and analytics; as organisations get bigger they move further and further away from being able to know each of their customers’ expectations.  Therefore, it’s perfectly fine to use a segmentation approach but make sure you support it with good data and research tools that create personas that can give you a deep understanding of the segments.

After you get a good understanding of your customers, the key is to rapidly test and learn.  Do something that you think might exceed expectations and then try to collect feedback, or if you are able, watch their reactions.  Today, tracking social media content and sentiment is a fantastic way to ‘listen’ to what customers say after an experience.

The key is; DO something.  Try to exceed expectations and learn from each experience.

2, Truly help your customers

Studies continually show that customers ‘feel the love’ when they are helped.

Why?  Because 99 times out of 100 your customers will feel like just another warm body at the other end of a transaction.

By breaking out of the usual confines of a transaction and genuinely making the effort to help your customers with their needs it will lead them to feel like an individual and, therefore, valued.

In my case, the connection between their act and me feeling valued was not even explicit in my mind.  It is not like I stopped and said to myself; “they saw a need of mine and helped me.  They must value me as a human being”. 

That process happened in a split second in my subconscious.  All I was aware of was me saying; “wow, that is impressive” and being left with a feeling of value and happiness.

Remember, I can’t use a needle and thread …I don’t know how long it would have taken me to get those buttons fixed but they went and ticked something off my to-do list for me.  It may seem so small but to me I felt like they stopped their usual processes just to help me out…THANK YOU Hilton Embassy Suites, Old Market, Omaha.

So helping customers goes a long way to making them feel very special; and having customers feel special leads to building sustainable businesses built on deep emotional connections….and of course…doing something to help them is likely to be the very thing that exceeds their expectations (see above).

3, Consider every part of your customer’s journey

If your business doesn’t directly deliver every part of your customer’s journey, make sure that you work with outsourced providers who are more likely to create positive customer experiences.

Those of you who are extra smart would have cottoned on to something that adds a layer to my experience…like most hotels, the laundry service was outsourced. 

I know this because the information from the hotel said that the shirts get sent to a local company, off site, and there was the usual information about getting the shirts in at a certain time so that they can be returned by a certain time.

But how many times have I mentioned the Hilton Embassy Suites, Old Market, Omaha??  That’s all I have been talking about.

I was staying at the Hilton Embassy Suites, so that’s who I remember.  I used the hotel’s laundry….so I remember the hotel.

Why is this important?  Because if your company uses outsourced providers how often do you judge them on the effect they could have on your customers?  How often have you weighed up potential providers and said to yourself “which one is most likely to exceed my customers’ expectations?” 

I bet that is rarely done.  At the most we would be thinking about how WE can exceed customer expectations, and we fail to see the discreet pieces in the customer journey that are delivered by others we have outsourced to.  It is still your brand and company they are interacting with.  It’s not enough to hope that your outsourced providers don’t “mess it up”….pick ones who also look for ways to exceed customer expectations.

So, 6 years on…

…and I still can’t help but smile and think “that was so awesome” when I put on a shirt.  It is possible to give your customers an experience that exceeds their expectations and stays with them for years afterwards.

So the big question is; if I ever go back to Omaha will I stay there again???  You bet I will; and I will take every shirt in my wardrobe that has a missing button!